Saving Faith by David Baldacci
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
She stood and looked down at him. "I'm thinking that I'd like to dance."
He stared up at her in amazement. "Dancing? How much did you have to drink?"
"How many nights do we have left here? Two? Three? Then it's off to play fugitive for the rest of our lives? Come on, Lee, last chance to party." She slipped off her sweater and let it fall to the sand. The white dress had spaghetti straps. She slipped them off her shoulders, gave him a heart-stopping wink and held out her hands for Lee to take.
"Let's go, big boy."
"You're crazy, you truly are." However, Lee gripped her hands and stood. "Fair warning, I haven't danced in a long time."
"You're a boxer, right? Your footwork is probably better than mine.
I'll lead first, and then you take over."
Lee took a few halting steps and dropped his hands. "This is silly, Faith. What if somebody's watching? They'll think were nuts."
She looked at him stubbornly. "I've spent the last fifteen years of my life worrying about what everybody thought about everything. So right now, I don't give a damn about what anybody thinks about anything."
"But we don't even have any music.
"Hum a tune. Listen to the wind, it'll come."
And surprisingly it did. They started slowly at first, Lee feeling clumsy and Faith unused to leading. Then, as they started to get more familiar with each other's movements, they began making wider circles in the sand. After about ten minutes, Lee's right hand was perched comfortably on Faith's hip, hers was around his waist, and their other pair of hands were interlocked and held chest high.
Then they grew noticeably braver and started doing some spins and twirls and other moves reminiscent of Big Band swing and Lindy hop. It was difficult, even in the hard-packed sand, but they gave it an inspired effort. Anyone watching would have thought them either intoxicated or reliving their youth and having the time of their lives.
And, in a way, both observations would have been true.
"I haven't done this since high school," Lee said, smiling. "Although Three Dog Night was the big thing back then, not Benny Goodman."
Faith said nothing as she twirled and dipped around him, her moves growing more and more daring, more and more seductive; a flamenco dancer in white flaming heat.
She hiked her skirt up to give herself more freedom of movement, and Lee felt his heart race at the sight of her pale thighs.
They even ventured out into the water, splashing mightily as they went about their increasingly intricate dance steps. They had some tumbles into the sand and even into the salty, chilly water, but they got back up and kept going. Occasionally a truly spectacular combination, perfectly executed, left them both breathless and grinning like schoolkids at a prom.
They finally reached the point where they both grew silent, their smiles faded and they drew closer to each other. The spins and twirls stopped, their heavy breaths eased and they found their bodies touching as their dance circles grew smaller. Finally they stopped altogether and simply stood there rocking slightly side to side, the last dance of the evening, arms around each other, faces close, eyes directly on one another as the wind whistled around them, the waves pitched and crashed hard, the stars and the moon watched from above.
Faith finally stepped away from him, her eyelids heavy, her limbs starting to once again erotically move to a silent tune.
Lee reached out to take her back. "I don't feel like dancing anymore, Faith." His meaning was crystal clear.
She reached out to him too, and then, quick as the snap of a whip, she shoved him hard in the chest and he flopped backward into the sand. She turned and ran, her peals of laughter descending over him as he looked after her, stunned. He grinned, jumped up and raced after her, catching her at the stairs going up to the beach house. He slung her over his shoulder and carried her the rest of the way, her legs and arms flailing in mock protest. They had forgotten the house alarm was set and went in the back door. Faith had to race like mad to the front door to disarm it in time.
"God, that was close. Like we really want the police coming by," she said.
"I don't want anybody coming by."
Gripping his hand tightly, Faith led Lee up to her bedroom. They sat on the bed in the darkness for a few minutes holding one another, gently rocking back and forth as though extending their movements on the beach to this more intimate place.
Finally she eased back from him, cupped his chin with her hand. "It's been a while, Lee. It's been a long time, in fact." Her tone was almost one of embarrassment, and Faith did feel embarrassed at this admission. She didn't want to disappoint him.
He stroked her fingers gently, held her gaze with his as the sounds of the waves reached them through the open window. It was comforting, she thought, the water, the wind, the touches of skin; a moment she may not experience again for a very long time, if ever.
"It'll never be easier for you, Faith."
This surprised her. "Why do you say that?"
Even in the darkness the glow of his eyes surrounded her, held her--protectively, she felt. The fifth-grade romance finally consummated? And yet she was with a man, not a boy. A unique man, in his own right. She looked him over. No, definitely not a boy.
"Because I can't believe you've ever been with a man who feels the way I do about you."
"Easy to say," she murmured, though in fact his words had touched her deeply.
"Not for me," Lee said.
These few words were spoken with such depth of sincerity, with not a trace of the glibness, the self-served ness of the world she had thrived in for the last fifteen years, that Faith honestly didn't know how to react. But the time for talk had passed. She found herself sliding Lee's clothes off, and then he disrobed her. He massaged her shoulders and neck as he did so. Lee's big fingers were surprisingly gentle. She would've expected them to be rough.
All of their movements were unhurried, natural, as though they had done this thousands of times over the course of a long, happy marriage, seeking just the right spots to work, to please the other.
They slid under the covers. Ten minutes later Lee slumped down, breathing heavy. Faith was under him, gasping for air as well. She kissed his face, his chest, his arms. Their sweat mingled, their limbs intertwined, they lay there talking and slowly kissing for another two hours, falling in and out of sleep as they did so. About three in the morning they made love again. And then both collapsed into deep, exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER 36
REYNOLDS WAS SITTING AT HER DESK when the phone call came. It was Joyce Bennett, the lawyer representing Reynolds in her divorce.
"We have a problem, Brooke. Your husband's attorney just called, ranting and raving about you hiding assets."
Brooke's face collapsed in disbelief. "Are you serious? Well, tell him to let me in on it. I could use the extra money."
"This isn't a joke. He faxed me some account statements he says he just discovered. Under the children's names."
"For God's sake, Joyce, those are the kids' college accounts. Steve knew about those. That's why I didn't list them with my assets.
Besides, they only have a few hundred dollars in them."
"Actually, the statements I'm looking at show a balance of fifty thousand dollars in each."
Reynolds's mouth went dry. "That's not possible. There must be some mistake."
"The other troubling thing is that the accounts are set up as Uniform Transfer to Minor's Act accounts. That means they're revocable at the discretion of the donor and trustee. You're the listed trustee, and I'm assuming you would be the donor of the funds as well. In essence, it's your money. You should have told me about these, Brooke."
"Joyce, there was nothing to tell. I have no idea where that money came from. What do the statements show as the origin of funds?"
"Several wire transfers of roughly equal amounts. It doesn't show where they came from. Steve's attorney is threatening to go to court and claim
Reynolds squeezed the phone and sat rigidly. "The Bureau?"
"You're sure you don't know where the money came from? How about your parents?"
"They don't have that kind of money. Can we trace the funds?"
"It's your account. I think you better do something. Keep me posted."
Reynolds hung up the phone and stared blankly at the papers on her desk, her mind reeling from this latest development. When the phone rang again a few minutes later, she almost didn't answer it. She knew who it was.
Paul Fisher spoke more coldly than ever to her. She was to come to the Hoover Building immediately. That was all he would tell her. As she walked down the stairs to the parking garage, her legs threatened to collapse under her several times. Every instinct she had told her she had just been summoned to her own professional execution.
The conference room at the Hoover Building was small and windowless.
Paul Fisher was there, along with the ADIC, Fred Massey. Massey sat at the head of the table, twirling a pen between his fingers, his gaze locked on her. She recognized the two other people in the room: a Bureau lawyer and a senior investigator from OPR.
"Sit down, Agent Reynolds," Massey said firmly.
Reynolds sat. She wasn't guilty of anything, so why did she feel like Charlie Manson with a bloody knife in his sock?
"We have some things to discuss with you." He glanced at the Bureau lawyer. "I have to advise you, however, that you have the right to have counsel present, if you so wish."
She tried to act surprised, but couldn't really, not after the phone call from Joyce Bennett. Her forced reaction certainly increased her guilt in their eyes, she felt sure. She wondered about the timing of that phone call from Bennett. Not a big believer in conspiracies, Reynolds suddenly began to reconsider that stance.
"And why would I need counsel?"
Massey eyed Fisher, who turned to Reynolds. "We received a phone call from the attorney representing your husband in the divorce."
"I see. Well, I just received a call from my attorney, and I can assure you I'm as much in the dark as anyone else about how that money got into those accounts."
"Really?" Massey looked at her skeptically. "So you're saying it's a mistake that someone very recently dumped a hundred thousand dollars into accounts under your children's names, monies which are solely controlled by you?"
"I'm saying I don't know what to think. But I will find out, I can assure you."
"The timing, as you can understand, has us deeply troubled," Massey said.
"Not as troubled as me. It's my reputation at stake."
"Actually, it's the reputation of the Bureau were concerned about,"
Fisher bluntly pointed out.
Reynolds gave him a cold stare and then looked back at Massey. "I don't know what's going on. Feel free to investigate; I've got nothing to hide."
Massey glanced down at a file in front of him. "Are you quite certain of that?"